TWCL

[Spencey]

Three years ago a hard disk crash forced me to learn a hard but valuable lesson about taking back-ups. Periodically I like to put a wee reminder up in the forum to save others the heartache of lost work.

Personally I'm a bit old-skool on this one. I manually save a back-up copy of each page as I complete it onto a separate external hard drive and occasionally burn the lot to a DVD and take it to my parents house.

But... how often do you back-up? Where do you do it? Do you have any good tools or safe and cost-effective storage spaces you could recommend?

Tell on, but more importantly, if you don't have a system... take a back-up right now!!!
_________________

[ewomack]

You seem to have a more rigorous backup plan than most people I know, especially since you keep a copy "off site" at your parents, which really cuts down on your risk of losing files. So it sounds like you're doing fine. I keep 4 backups, all to separate USB drives. I simply copy all of the files to these drives periodically by just clicking and dragging. I hope that my webhosting company also keeps backups, which they claim to.

The lesson about backups is a hard one to learn. I luckily learned it vicariously from a friend who one day lost all of his files. I started backing up that same day and I've never stopped. But I could do more...
_________________
Ed Womack

[iaviv]

I endorse this post.
My backing up routine isn't all that extensive, but I do burn stuff to cds every now and then and do backups of every file on the same hard drive (I should probably get an external hard drive, huh?). In the last two years I've lost quite a few pages because I didn't do that. When Photoshop or Manga Studio crashes, you can pretty much say goodbye to your file. Sometimes the file isn't damaged, somehow, but better safe than sorry. I also make backups on my USB flash drive, eh... sometimes.
_________________

[afterthedream]

I save all my files on my hard drive, a flash drive, and I e-mail them to myself.
_________________

[smbhax.com]

I currently burn stuff to DVD, as well as upload it to Amazon's S3/Glacier storage. I don't do it often enough though--I've kind of gotten lazy since I started working traditionally, since "I've got a backup on paper!" >_<
_________________

[Spencey]

Saw this on Lifehacker and thought of you (all)...

http://lifehacker.com/5983665/grab-50gb-of-box-online-storage-free-for-life
_________________

[wendyw]

I know Jess keeps back-ups of the websites and everything on them, but I'm not entirely sure how often they're backed up. About once a week maybe?

As for backing up the stuff that's not online, I'm terrible for that. With Gilbert and Grim it wouldn't be a terrible loss, because if I ever have a buffer it's usually no more than a couple of pages at most, but with Commander Cottontail I have stuff photographed that I don't intend to use for months, because I tend to shoot everything I need with a particular set over the space of a week or so and then dismantle it for parts for the next one, so if I were to lose the unedited Commander Cottontail photos I'd need to do a hell of a lot of work rebuilding long dismantled sets using only the existing strips for reference, so yeah, I'll back-up the Commander Cottontail folders later this evening.
_________________

Blog

[Marscaleb]

Wow, what a great thread to remind us all of this!

For a few years I have been making sure I back up everything important on my computer every month. Each month I copy all my new/altered files since my last backup onto a set of five DVD-RW discs. On the sixth month I backup everything onto a set of DVDs or an external hard drive.
However, I have been trying to change my method. My brother has a NAS set up at his house and I am trying to FTP into it and update everything. I really would like some suggestions for a program that could do that for me automatically.

However, it does occur to me that I have done nothing to back up my site, and while I do still have all the comic pages, I don't have any backup arranged for comments and such. I should look into that...

ALSO, the actual files from which I create my pages are all duplicated into another folder on my computer. This is so that if I ever do something stupid like save the file after I merge all the layers or delete certain portions I still have a copy I can fall back on. Thank goodness I have this, too. I went back last week to look at one of my old pages and I found that I had done exactly that; I had deleted a whole quarter of the page while making the final composite that was displayed online. Thank goodness I had that older backup.
_________________
My webcomic: Mischief in Maytia
http://maytiacomic.com/

[katastrophe]

I use CrashPlan, which is pretty awesome, and if you're just backing up to a local disk or a friend's computer, free. I run backups both to my husband's computer and pay for the cloud service off of it, and it's saved my butt a couple of times when I've accidentally overwritten something (yay, versioned backups!), plus my husband's butt quite recently when his hard drive died. And it's basically brainless -- just install and leave it to run -- which when you have as few braincells as I do to go around is a plus.
_________________

[vulpeslibertas]

I use a software repository for stuff I really care about: http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/

It's designed for software, but works on html and images too. Main advantages are that I can save it to my server or to another disk drive. I can also go back to previous revisions of files, so if I corrupt or eviscerate something, I can go back to before the damage was done.
_________________

[Justinfh]

I backs up my files on a daily bases on both an external hard drive and a flash drive.

[Casual Notice]

I maintain a local mirror of my site, and do a full backup of all my files on a semi-annual basis. I back up on optical disk because it has more staying power, and I don't like storing my property on the Cloud for the same reson I don't keep my winter clothes in the Street.
_________________
What I lack in sincerity, I make up for in sarcasm.
S*P*Q*R

[pdonz2]

I back-up my art files monthly to an external hard drive, but I should probably do more than that for my online stuff...
_________________

[Bill Murphy]

I have a 2GB USB stick that I quickly save every comic once it is completed. It just sticks right in my USB port so it is quick and easy to use.

I have a 300GB external hard drive that I back up onto every so often. (I'm doing it right now thanks!)

I also back up my comics onto my smartphone's SD card. This way if something was to happen while I wasn't home, my phone will still be with me.

I don't use "The Cloud" because it's new and new stuff scares me...

[Lady Tygry]

Copied over to our file server during any uploads. All computers in the house are backed up nightly.